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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jason2250" data-source="post: 5868607" data-attributes="member: 6691913">I am brand new here, but I have been DMing for almost 10 years.  Early on in my experiences as a player I found that the off the shelf module was too rigid to suit most players.  If someone wants the "go here and do this and ONLY this" type game they should buy a computer game.  That said, anytime that I bring a new player into my campaign, I have a one on one sit down with them before hand and try to grasp what kind of playing style they most prefer, and which styles they really hate.  This gives me a good grasp on what to stray away from, and a better idea of what I should focus on, all within the realm of the story.  At the end of every play session with my group, I try to find out if anyone was disappointed with the happenings, did anything feel off or not right, and I try to make sure that everyone stays on the same page within the story.  Each of my players knows that their character has their own storyline, on top of the four or five adventure arcs that they're presently working through.  There is no single story in my world, everything is kept track of, including NPCs that the party feels they have left long in the dust have come back to bite them (sometimes literally!).  As a Dungeon Master, Game Master, whatever my nightly title is, I feel that my responsibility lies in immersing the party in my world and allowing them to feel like their characters can (and do!) shape the world.  I will admit that there are times that a left turn leads to a 15-20 minute HOLD ON GUYS I NEED AN NPC LOLOLZ1111!!, but my players have always taken things in stride this way.The last thing that I do, is I award a small amount of bonus experience to every player in my game that gives me a character-perspective write up of the happenings in the campaign.  1) This allows me as the DM to get inside the characters head and really understand their emotional reactions to things. and 2) this gives me a great basis for converting my long running campaigns into books or novels.  I am in the process of doing this for my current campaign.  My players all know that they should know their classes and their spells, and I even help my casters prepare spell books with the description of their spells so we don't have to book surf for interesting questions.  They also know that I allow arguments of logic that break game rules for the sake of the story.  This has lead to some interesting encounters and happenings, but it's all been in good fun.  I hope this was useful.  I have never had a player walk away unhappy about my DMing, but everyone gets upset at the random dead character every now and again...Paul</blockquote>

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